Hellfire
by Chris Ganale
Summary: Seven years have passed since The Great War. As the UNSC Sangheili Alliance rebuilds, a thriving colony world falls disturbingly silent. Investigation by an ODST recon team uncovers a horror rivaling even the Flood, threatening a galactic pandemic.


**Prologue**

_September 3, 2560  
__Capital City Kemet, Planet Philae, Seti Osiris System, Outer Colonies  
__2118 hours, local time_

The low rumble of thunder boomed over the silent city, rattling the shards of glass that still clung tenaciously to the window frame two stories up along the wall of the alleyway that the ODST sat crumpled in, possibly the last living being anywhere on the planet.

That wasn't a feat she'd be able to lay claim to for much longer, she mused, as she stared down at the jagged hunk of glass that protruded through the unarmored side of her stomach. She was bleeding out, she knew, but that wasn't the worst of it.

Her suit seal had been compromised. Even if she didn't have the bloody glass shard impaling her, the fact remained that she'd been exposed to the epidemic that had destroyed this world, which she had witnessed transform civilian, Marine, Unggoy, and Sangheili alike into mindless, bloodthirsty monsters. Even the small contingent of Spartan-IIIs that had been stationed on the planet had only managed to cull the herd, themselves falling before the vicious power of the mutated hordes.

Rain fell steadily from the clouds, washing away her blood and the detritus of the alley. The rain was toxic, stinging her wound like thousands of heated needles being jabbed into the nerves; the mass of fires that had burned buildings, vehicles, and corpses alike over the past several months doubtless responsible for the acidic rain. Depolarizing her visor, she stared up into the falling rain, the expected feeling of peace settling over her.

"Why does it always rain on doomed worlds, for people with no hope left?" she spoke aloud, recording the last of her thoughts the same way she had recorded everything since the initial outbreak. "It rained on Reach. It rained on Earth the night the Covenant arrived. And now it's raining here on Philae while I'm bleeding out, exposed and no doubt already infected by the virus."

She laughed weakly, then swiftly cut herself off as she felt a sudden urge to vomit, clamping her teeth together and swallowing against the bile, and likely the blood, that would've otherwise filled up her helmet. Once the feeling passed, she sighed softly. "Sorry, listen to me waxing poetic all of a sudden. I never was one for poetry. Just give me a gun and point me at the enemy, and I was fine. That's what got me through the Earth campaigns, through the Ark. But this enemy was much different. More dangerous. Even moreso than the Flood. They had weak points, and could be predicted. These monsters are different."

Reaching down, she pressed her gloved fingers into the pool of her blood, then stared at the darkened slick on her gloves. "I wonder which I'll become. One of the weak horde? Perhaps the acid-spitter? I hope not; those were so damn disgusting. Maybe the one that's not deadly until provoked. I think I could handle that. That might not be so bad."

She raised her pistol in her other hand, the only weapon she had left, and regarded the locked-back slide. "I'd go ahead and do myself and keep you from having to face one less monster, my unknown successor, but I don't have even one bullet left. I can't even do you that favor. I'm sorry. All I have to offer is the information that I've catalogued and left behind. I hope you'll be able to access it, and that my observations will prove useful in surviving the unknown hell that you've been sent into. This planet must be destroyed, its surface burnt to ash, its oceans and atmosphere boiled into nothingness. That's the only way to stop this from spreading to the rest of the Alliance."

She paused as she felt her right index finger twitching, raising the hand in question and staring at the offending digit as the twitching intensified, her finger's shape twisting and mutating directly before her eyes. A faint smirk curled her lips. "Well, I guess it's decided then. I'm going to be one of those lone creatures. They don't move around much, so if you find my helmet, I should be nearby. I've noticed they're highly susceptible to surprise attacks, but I've always had a sixth sense about those things, so it may be best to just hit me with a rocket or something.

"I don't have a lot of time left. I've given you all the information I have, so it's up to whoever the Alliance sends to investigate to use it to their best interest. End recording."

The small, blinking red light in the corner of her field of vision died out, and she sighed heavily, a weight lifted from her shoulders. She had done all she could to ensure the survival of those who would be coming to this world to find out what had happened, and there was nothing else for her to do but try to find herself a hole to crawl into and finish dying, a hole where the monster that she would soon become would pose little threat to the next team.

Reaching up, she unsealed her helmet, then pulled the black headgear off and set it down against the wall beside her, braced in such a way that wind and rain wouldn't dislodge it, that the shambling hordes were unlikely to stumble upon it. Leaving her empty pistol beside the helmet, she raised her face up to the sky one last time, watching the rain fall down. She flinched when several droplets fell into her eyes, but felt no pain as they slowly started to consume the sensitive organs. She was well into shock now, which meant she perhaps had one or two minutes left before she fully bled out.

Bracing her hands against the wall behind her, she slowly pushed herself to her feet, her head swimming from the blood loss. Her vision fading, she looked at her helmet one last time to see the faint blue light pulsing from within, nodding as she confirmed that it had been left on, and would show up as a beacon on the VISR vision of any other ODSTs that came along.

The twitching sensation was now spreading to the other fingers of her right hand, which she pressed to her forehead in an effort to rub out the headaches as she stumbled further down the alley, feeling her way along with the palm of her other hand. She made it another dozen steps before collapsing face-first to the pavement, her body shuddering as her last breaths wheezed out, and then slowly, inexorably, falling still.


End file.
